Feelings
by Jaaannn
Summary: During times or war, there are enough things to worry about. Feelings are the last on the list and Hermione plans to keep it that way. One shot.


If there was one thing she had learned in the past three months, was that writers often lied. All the books she had read about revolutions, coup d'états and other war-related situations, there was one thing she had learned. The writers hadn't told the truth. There was nothing romantic about war. Dying in a war was no more honorable than dying from a horrible disease. It didn't get easier with time. Or better. War was the most persistent disease she knew, and everybody around her was infected.

It was three in the morning, and Hermione Granger was sat in the kitchen, a cup of steaming tea in front of her. She just got back from her rounds around the house, and wasn't tired enough to go to bed, yet. It was strange, she thought, that everybody thought the war was over the minute Voldemort was killed. Of course the war wouldn't be over with one fight. The death eaters had turned out to be way stronger than any of them anticipated, and now, seven months after Voldemort's death, things were still as bad as they had been before.

Well, maybe not as bad. After all, the catalyst of all-evil had been defeated, and many people had been saved from a painful death. Not all of them were saved, though. And for sure- none of them were safe. She only realized her tea had gone cold when she took a sip and nearly spit it out. She sighed and walked over to the sink to pour her cold beverage in the sink.

She stiffened when she heard footsteps behind her, and her wand was in her hand within moments. "Always so nervous, Granger," she heard and she relaxed while Draco Malfoy finished his sentence. "You should really try and loosen up a bit," he said with a suggestive tone in his voice. She turned around and shot her friend a tired and annoyed look.

Fine, then. Maybe there had been one or two good things about the war. The fact that Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson had chosen to turn their backs to the dark side, for example. Maybe two minutes after Voldemort had been killed, there had been peace. Everybody thought that had been it; it was over now. Nothing turned out to be less true. Someone had shouted angrily, and before Hermione knew it, the people on Hogwarts' courtyard had divided into two groups. Light and dark. Good and evil. Not that that had been surprising at all. Everybody at Hogwarts had always been quick to pick a side when there was need for it. What had been surprising was that there were now three Slytherins that had chosen for the light side. Nobody had noticed at first, because the three seventh-years had chosen to stay in the back. After that battle was over, and most people had survived by apparating to Safe Houses and other hidden places, Hermione was one of the few left to check for any wounded.

That had been when her eyes caught sight of three dark figures, sitting by, and appearing to help, a wounded person. She quietly made her way over them and gasped when she saw the three Slytherins, trying to help Lavender Brown. Upon noticing her, Blaise started to explain that she just fell over, and that they didn't know what happened to her. Hermione quickly decided that helping Lavender now was more important than questioning her former classmates, and grabbed her Housemate to apparate her over to a Safe House. She put Lavender on the first bed she saw, quickly explained the situation and then apparated back to Hogwarts. This hadn't cost more than two minutes, so she was pretty sure her classmates were still where she had left them. And she had been right. They were still there, though they had moved to a more secure spot.

After a few questions from her, explanations from them and – just to be sure- a few drops of Veritaserum from McGonagall, the light side accepted them. Not everybody was welcoming in the beginning, especially those personally hurt by the three, but after a few missions, they prove to be valuable, and they proved they could be trusted.

She sat back down at the table, where Draco had now put a new cup of tea in front of her, next to a big cup of coffee for himself. "Coffee won't help you fall asleep, you know," she said as she took a sip from her tea.

"I don't really want to fall asleep," Draco confessed after a short silence. Hermione knew that tone. She recognized it because she used it, too. "Nightmares?" She asked, folding her hands around the cup, enjoying the warmth it provided. Draco nodded while he took a sip of his coffee.

"It's like they get worse every night," he quietly said. For others, Draco's uncensored confessions may be shocking, but Hermione wasn't surprised that Draco was this honest. It had happened many times before. Since Draco was placed in the same safe house as her, they regularly met in the kitchens at night. Hermione had a lot of missions that were planned during the nights and Draco often started really early in the morning, when the daylight barely broke through the darkness of the night.

Every now and then they were both free, but couldn't fall asleep anyway, because of their usual schedules. Hermione often opted to grab a cup of tea, whilst she often ran into Draco- who had learned to brew a decent cup of coffee. The first few weeks, they would nod at each other, maybe exchange a few words, and then they would return back to their rooms.

All of that had changed in one night. One mission. Draco and Hermione had both been asked to help secure a vault, while three other Order members would go in and retrieve a document that they needed to find out how to brew an antidote for a severely nasty spell. They were told that it was a short mission, and that they wouldn't have to guard the entrance for longer than ten minutes, as the vault was small and there was only one way in or out. When they heard sounds that indicated and explosion, they decided to go take a look inside.

When their eyes were used to the darkness, they quickly figured out what had happened. The roof of the vault appeared to be broken, and big rocks had divided the vault in half- much like what had happened with Harry and Ron in their second year. After Hermione had send out a Patronus to their safe house, she and Draco started to make a plan on how to rescue their colleagues.

That's when they found out they made a good team. Draco perfectly matched Hermione in strength; where she had to give up, he took over. Hermione was smaller than he was, which gave her an advantage when they had to crawl through narrow spaces. The night after they saved their fellow Order members, they ran into each other and talked things over. Soon after that, they found out they didn't only match each other physically, but mentally, too.

After that, many nights were spent in the kitchen, and for everyone who walked by, the quiet laughter and good-humoured banter were a delight to listen to. It showed that even in times of darkness, friendships could be created.

Of course, there had been some objections against their evolving relationship. Especially Ron and Harry had had trouble with Hermione and Draco's friendship, but after a good old fight between the trio, a mission that would've ended completely different if it weren't for Draco's quick thinking and the fact that they had all grown up, they were fine.

"I know what you're talking about," Hermione said, pulling both her and Draco from their thoughts. "I thought..," She was quiet, not sure if she should continue or not. After she took another sip of tea and a deep breath, she decided that she could as well tell him; she could trust him not to betray her with her naïve side. "I thought that it would all be over, after we destroyed the horcruxes and killed Voldemort, you know," she explained.

She looked at Draco and saw that he was staring into his cup. "I thought that that was it and that it would be over." Her voice trembled at the end of the sentence. She hadn't realized that saying the words would cause such emotions, but she wasn't surprised.

After all, she had tried to keep her emotions in check for so long, and now they appeared to break through the glass bubble she had kept them in all that time. Draco still hadn't said a word. Hermione looked up to find him in the same position he sat in five minutes ago. He had his arms stretched out on the table, palms down. His cup of coffee stood in the middle, cooling down. His eyes were closed and he looked tired, like he hadn't slept through the night in weeks. Hermione sighed, if her own experience was one to go by, chances were he _hadn't _slept through the night in days.

"I get what you mean," Draco said not long after. "For so long, I waited for it all to end, you know. Though for me," he grinned darkly "it would mean death. And death didn't sound like the worst thing in the world then." Hermione nodded slowly. If the Light side had won before he and his classmates had had the chance to change sides, they would have faced trial. Maybe not death, but she knew a few of the things that Draco had done; he would have landed in Azkaban for sure.

Draco's comment about death didn't scare her, either. Everybody was waiting for it all to end, and many had admitted to suicidal thoughts. However, she knew that Draco was not suicidal. He was way too brave to kill himself. In his eyes, suicide was a weakness, a backdoor he didn't want to use. She looked at the blonde in front of her once more, and blushed when she saw him studying her.

"Where's that from?" Draco asked, his finger pointing at a faint scar by her collarbone. Hermione's hand instinctively reached to touch the healed wound. "Knife," she muttered. She didn't like to talk about her battle wounds. They reminded her of what had happened, and she didn't like to remember. She had never been a talker, and talking about her problems with others her wouldn't help anyway. They would only worry, and she didn't want them to worry. She was fine. She could handle herself.

"Why don't you ever talk about what happened to you?" Draco asked her. Hermione stiffened. _See_, she thought, _that's what happens when you open up to people. Eventually, they start asking questions._

Instead of answering, she shrugged and got up to check if there were still leftovers from dinner. She had slept the entire day, and to be fair, she was starving. She could feel Draco's eyes on her as she opened the oven to find two plates with- according to the smell- Molly's famous Sheperd's Pie. She put the plates on the counter and removed the heating charm. She grabbed salt and pepper from the cupboard and levitated the spices and the plates to the table. After Draco had summoned their cutlery and Hermione sat down, they started to eat.

"Don't think I'm satisfied, Granger," Draco said after a few minutes of eating. The food had certainly gotten his attention, but he still wanted answers. Hermione never opened up, and if she did her wall only crumbled down for a few moments, after she rebuilt it with extra strong bricks. He wanted to know what happened to her when he wasn't there with her. He wanted to know where her scars came from; he wanted to know who had marked her with such hate that it was still visible.

It wasn't completely strange that Hermione didn't want to talk to him. He knew that she had problems with opening up. Hell, everybody did. But eventually, even the most stubborn people opened up. Potter, for example. Merlin, that boy had been such a baby. Didn't want to talk to anyone- he'd rather just destroy himself from the inside. In the end Hermione convinced him that it was better to talk to people than to keep it all in. How ironic. He was glad that Potter decided to talk to someone, though. Made him a lot more tolerable.

After they finished their dinners, Hermione put the plates in the sink and started to do the dishes the muggle-way. Draco didn't even question why she did it anymore. He had argued with her about the way she still did things the muggle way, but she didn't change the way she was raised to do certain things, and he believed that it kept her mind off of things for some reason.

Slowly, a plan started to form in his mind. He got up and took the towel from where Hermione had laid it over the chair, and walked over to the sink. He grabbed a plate and started to dry it carefully. He almost laughed when he saw Hermione's gobsmacked face.

"What are you _doing_?" She asked with obvious surprise in her voice. "Why, Granger, I'd think for a muggleborn like you, it'd be quiet obvious," he said with a smirk. "But since you have trouble comprehending the situation, I shall explain." He dry-coughed once and went to stand in the middle of the kitchen. He held up the plate in one hand and the towel in the other.

"This is a plate," he said, raising the plate a few inches. "This is a towel." He nodded at the red towel in his other hand. "Two unique objects, which on first sight don't have anything to do with one another. Until," he said and he lowered his voice, "there's hot water and soap involved."

He saw that Hermione was trying to keep her face straight, and he felt a little proud. He always felt proud when he had made Hermione smile, or lifted her mood. It was hard to laugh these days, and that she laughed because of him made him feel all nice and weird inside, kind of warm and tingly.

* * *

Warm and tingly, that's how she felt when Draco and she were together. She couldn't even remember when it started, but she guessed it was right after their mission with the vault. Since then, she hoped she would run into him in the kitchen, and every time she did, her heart would jump up and start an energetic salsa in her chest. She knew she couldn't act on her feelings, but it was nice to feel something else besides sorrow and hopelessness.

She wasn't completely sure, but sometimes it looked like Draco had the same feelings, and that made everything even harder. She could never start something with him, even if people accepted it. It was too dangerous for numerous reasons. She and Draco were a terrific team; they matched each other perfectly. If they were together, they could get distracted. Not to mention what would happen if they broke up; they'd both have to find other partners and that was hard in times like these. There weren't any spare people, so to say.

Then there was the situation that they also went on individual missions. If something happened to Draco and they were seriously, grown-up-ly in love- she'd die. The thought of Draco dying already made her stomach hurt now, and weren't even a thing right now. No. Dating Draco was no option, and her heart should just find another reason to dance.

She was lost in thought again. She didn't do that every often, but he loved when she did. She seemed completely oblivious to her surroundings, her eyes focused on the floor and her arms always seemed to end up crossed under her chest. Which was not the reason he loved it, though the fact that her boobs got pushed up made him realize that she wasn't a thirteen year old, bucktoothed girl anymore.

Draco liked her when she was lost in thought because her guard was down, and she only let that happen when she was around people she trusted. They once sat in the kitchen at night and they were both thinking about a new strategy for a mission, and she was lost in thought (not that he had been studying her, he just happened to see). Suddenly Brown came in, and within a second, Hermione's walls were resurrected and she was on top of her mind again.

Everybody knew that Hermione didn't trust Lavender enough to call her a friend, so to say. This may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that Lavender almost blabbed secret information to a spy, two months ago. It was an accident, and after a shot glass with Veritaserum, it turned out to be an honest mistake, but that didn't make matters any better.

The other Order members had forgiven Lavender quite soon after the disaster; war was no time for grudges. Hermione, however, couldn't forgive as easily as the rest. Lavender had made a mistake, by falling for a real simple trick and it shouldn't have happened.

"Are we done?" Draco asked while he put the final few dishes in the cabinets. "Yeah," Hermione, who had been helping putting the dishes away, looked at the oven plate she held in her hand. "Except I have no idea where these go." Draco looked at the plate with flower pattern in her hand and recognized it as Molly's favourite. "I know where it goes," he said as he took it from her hands and stretched out to place it on the highest shelf.

When he reached up, Hermione's eyes inevitably moved down his body, to the point where his shirt got rid up so that she could see a patch of skin. Which made her body heat up. She quickly turned her back to Draco and tried with all her might to focus her attention elsewhere. When she had calmed down enough she made to turn back around, but the feeling of Draco's hands on her shoulders stopped her.

Her heart beat frantically in her chest and her cheeks were even more red than two minutes before. After a few quiet moments where all she could hear was her own breath, Draco's hands moved to turn her front to him.

Only when Hermione opened her eyes to see Draco look down at her she realized she had had her eyes closed. She took a deep breath and kept staring into the man's eyes.

Draco was still not talking when he took a step closer to her. Without realizing she did so, Hermione took a step back, causing her back to hit the counter. A surprised gasp escaped her mouth and before she even realized Draco's lips where on hers. His hands had found their way to her hips, and he pulled her closer to him. Hermione's hands flung around his neck; without her actual permission. _Merlin he's a good kisser_. Immediately after that thought had floated through her head she reopened her eyes in horror and pushed Draco away.

"What are you doing?" She asked with a shaky voice. Draco smirked before answering. "You're smart Granger, what do you think it was?" He watched as Hermione's face turned agitated, a sign that she was starting to get annoyed. He loved that. "I know what you were doing," she said. "But what were you doing _kissing _me!?" Draco gestured Hermione to keep it down, it was the middle of the night after all. "I like you," he simply said. "On most occasions, when one likes one another, one tries to get that through. One starts by talking, but when the one another in this situation is so daft that she doesn't get it, even though she is supposedly the brightest witch of her age, one should take more drastic steps. Hence why I kissed you," he explained. He could barely keep his laughter in as he watched Hermione's face turn an adorable shade of pink, before she took a step towards him and pushed him in the chest.

"You like me?" She said with an edge to her voice. "We're in war. Our friends are dying. We don't know if we'll make it till tomorrow and I already have trouble sleeping and now you decide to tell me you _like_ me!?" She scoffed before she took another menacing step towards him, causing his bum to hit the dining table.

"You don't go around telling girls you like them when you're in the middle of a war! You keep quiet, because you have other things to worry about. _I_ have other things to worry about! And now, thanks to you, I have more things to worry about and I don't want to worry about any more things because most of the time I feel like my head is exploding and that is without you being in there messing with my feelings and clouding my judgement and it was all sort of safe because I could just tell myself you don't" she suddenly stopped and her eyes went wide, but they both knew she had said too much. She had revealed one of her secrets to him: she returned his feelings.

If someone were to ask them who initiated their second kiss, they'd both tell them that it wasn't them: to Draco, Hermione had definitely kissed him this time, where as Hermione would stubbornly say Draco had once more violated her lips. What they would never tell though, was that they had both wanted more than either would admit. Draco needed to taste Hermione, to know that he had been right, to know that she really did return his feelings. Hermione wanted to just kiss him, because she had already made a fool of herself this evening; why not make it a little worse? Besides- he was a good kisser. Made her insides go all jumpy and that.

They stumbled around the kitchen, bumping into furniture until Draco sat down on a chair and pulled Hermione on his lap. After a few minutes of hot kisses and hands getting tangled in hair, they both pulled back to take a deep breath.

"So," Hermione said panting. "You like me." Draco nodded. "I do." Hermione nodded again, nervously biting her lower lip. "And you like me." Draco confirmed. Hermione's lip went free as she swept her tongue over it and smiled. "I do."


End file.
